Requiem for a Hatch


The kids added a new idiom to their repertoire yesterday. "Don't count your chickens before they hatch," I explained to them, "means not to plan for something happening before it actually does."

"Oh no!" exclaimed Beulah, "I was just telling Hannah how I was going to play with the chicks and hold them when they were hatched."

I reassured her that she hadn't created a self-fulfilling prophecy with her grand poultry-related plans. Instead, I had to tell them that life--even the life of 18 tiny chick eggs--is fragile and precious. Try as we might, the little bit of control we have (over the temperature and humidity in the incubator) is still not enough on its own to breathe life into something. It's no different with a human life, I reminded them. Each and every time a child is born into this world, it is nothing short of a miracle. Nowadays, it's easy to forget that. People schedule babies' arrivals, dispose of *unplanned* pregnancies in the blink of an eye and create children in laboratories with little regard to the wonder which exists when God allows us to partner with Him in creating life.

This lesson may not have turned out the way we had planned, but God used it to teach a valuable lesson--on the beauty of the gift of life--that won't soon be forgotten.